The ''J'' of Lydia J. Challiss

The "J" of Lydia J. Challiss
E R N S T F. T O N S I NG
T H E "SCARY PICTURE"
As a child playing in the large, old library of Grandmother
Ruth Tonsing, I enjoyed opening the huge, glass doors of
the cabinets and taking the books down—carefully, as I
had been taught to respect books at an early age—and carrying them
over to the table in the center of the room. Turning the pages,
wonderful worlds far from Atchison, Kansas, would come before my
eyes, images of cathedrals in France, castles in Germany, and ancient,
ruined temples in Greece and Rome.
There was one picture I did not like. It was in a book that had to
be handled most carefully of all: John R. Murphy's The M e m o i r of Rev.
James M . C h a l l i s s . 1 In the middle of it was an oval engraving of a
grim, older woman dressed in a black dress with a lace-edged collar
wrapped around her neck and crossed left over right in front, fas­tened
by a brooch in the middle. Out of the whiteness of this scarf
rose a tall neck supporting a thin face. The light came down from
above to illuminate it. There was a slight dimple in the chin, deep
furrows descending from the sides of the down-turned mouth, and
two others reaching down from the nostrils under very high cheek­bones.
The eyes stared unblinking through octagonal wire glasses.
The black hair was parted in the middle above a high forehead and
came straight down on both sides, suddenly erupting in four thick,
pendant curls, two on each side, behind the ears.2 It is the image of
which nightmares are made!
ERNST F. T O N S I N G is a professor of N e w Testament and Greek at California
L u t h e r a n University. His research and publication topics range from A l e x a n d e r the
G r e a t to rune stones, Viking ships, Swedish folk art, and Swedish A m e r i c a . H e has
been active in the A m e r i c a n Scandinavian Foundation in T h o u s a n d Oaks (Califor­n
i a ) , the Swedish-American Historical Association of California, and C L U ' s Scandi­navian
Festival. This is his second contribution to the Quarterly.
Grandmother had shown me this picture and told me that it was
of her Great-grandmother Challiss. A t that time I was less than
impressed. I'd rather forget the image because it was just too scary. I
wasn't sure that I wanted to have a relative like that lurking about.
97
As far as I was concerned, that book with its picture could stay on its
shelf. I had far more interesting, and less ghastly, ones to look at.
Later, Grandmother gave that book to my parents, and for a long
time they kept it on a Queen Anne table by a wingback chair in the
living room. I didn't open it. Now, years later, I have that book and,
as an adult, have mustered the courage to gaze at that page again.
The picture is still forbidding. Perhaps it reflects the age and the
solemnity with which one sat for a portrait as much as the character
of the person depicted. The severe curls and lace probably were
thought to be quite stylish at the time, as were the "granny" glasses.
And maybe the upright head and steady gaze reflect the woman's
upbringing and position in the community.
T H E PERSON IN T H E PICTURE: LYDIA J. CHALLISS
Below the picture is her name, "Lydia J. Challiss." In his M e m o i r
her husband, Rev. James M . Challiss, notes his marriage to her on 23
August 1823 and writes that "this lady has proved to me a rich
blessing, a faithful, pious wife, an affectionate, managing, kind-hearted
mother to our children—Joseph, William, Luther, George, and Emma."3
The M e m o i r reveals more of the character Lydia Challiss received
from her parents:
She was favored with the careful training of these earnest
Christian parents, and the hallowed influence of a lovely
Christian home, where strict filial obedience, and habits of
industry and economy were beautifully blended with paren­tal
indulgence, refinement, and comparative affluence.4
It also tells us of the results of such an upbringing:
The moulding [sic] influence of these privileges was not lost
upon the youngest daughter of the household. She was natu­rally
amiable, and thoughtful of others, and ever self-sacrific­ing
to the comfort and pleasures of those she loved. She
readily acquired those habits of industry and economy, and
the refinement which so marked her father's family.5
98
Her "joyful" piety is noted, along with her baptism on 17 De­cember
1820 at the First Baptist Church in Salem, New Jersey.6 She
matured, according to the M e m o i r , "endowed with the graces of true
womanly Christian character," well fitted to be the wife of a Baptist
minister. In that role, the book says:
She was far-sighted and frugal in managing their domestic
affairs, and in using their limited resources to the best advan­tage;
ever giving to their home an air of ease, comfort and
refinement, which made it home-like and pleasant to the
humblest disciple, and commended it to the admiration of
the affluent, and even the fastidious.7
Contemporaries of Lydia Challiss, then, had a high estimation of
her, much different from the image projected by the oval picture in
the book.
T H E J IN LYDIA J. CHALLISS
The name Lydia is well known to those who have read the
biblical Acts of the Apostles, for that was the name of the first
convert of Saint Paul after his arrival in Europe. Challiss is the name
of a large family with roots in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.8 It was her
middle initial under her picture that intrigued me—an elegant, cur­sive
J, framed by the other two names.
The Memoir reveals that this J stands for Johnson, and that this
woman was the daughter of Deacon James Johnson, who had been
born in Pittsgrove, Salem, New Jersey, and of Christianna (this is the
spelling of her name in the Memoir) Swing, also of Salem County,
New Jersey. They were farmers who started out humbly but, through
"careful perseverance," according to the Memoir, became among the
most wealthy in the county. These parents moved to Mannington for
a while, and then to Penn's Neck, New Jersey. They raised ten chil­dren;
the second youngest was Lydia. The M e m o i r states that James
and Christianna had been Presbyterian but joined the Baptist Church
in Salem, where he became Deacon and President of the Board of
99
Trustees.9
Although the Memoir has nothing more on these parents, a cousin
sent me a few pages of a narrative entitled The H o u s e of John Johnson,
by Mary Kupillas, in which the family is described.1 0 Along with
James and Christiana (cp. Christianna in the M e m o i r ) Johnson, and
her husband, Rev. James M . Challis (cp. Challiss), Lydia is men­tioned,
but is given the birth year of 1804 rather than 1803 as stated
in the Memoir.1 1 Further, it says that "William was a physician, mar­ried
without issue."12 However, it is known that William L. Challiss
and his wife, Mary A n n Harres, had twelve children—nine girls and
three boys.1 3 These three errors within one paragraph caught my
attention.
100
JAMES JOHNSON A N D CHRISTIANNA SWING
Kupillas lists the birth of the father of Lydia Challiss, James Johnson,
as 31 October 1757, and his death at eighty years on 9 February
1837.1 4 She also mentions that the family rented a large farm in
Mannington, New Jersey, until the spring of 1809, when they moved
to Lower Penn's Neck, near Salem, where they became quite success­ful.
Of sixteen children, the ten who lived were Sarah, Ruth, Will­iam,
Mary, Abraham, Rebecca, John, Ann, Lydia, and Rachel. Their
lives are described in this book.15
Regarding the mother of Lydia Challiss, Christianna1 6 Swing,
Kupillas has her born in Pittsgrove, New Jersey (no date given), her
marriage to James Johnson on 28 February 1781, her death on 19
March 1825, and that she is buried with her husband at Salem
Baptist Church, New Jersey.17 Nothing more is said of her by this
author. Further research has shown that Christianna Swing was born
25 October 1764 in Pittsgrove, Salem, New Jersey, and her parents
were Samuel Schwing, born 8 June 1732 in Hanhoffen, Bischweiler,
Alsace, France, and Sarah Diament, born 15 March 1730 in Salem,
New Jersey.18 This anglicizing of a name to accommodate American
ears was not unusual and is frequently encountered in immigrant
records.1 9 The family continues back through seven generations in
Alsace.2 0
JOHN JOHNSON A N D J A N E SWAYBERRY
The parents of James Johnson are named by Kupillas as John
Johnson, born about December 1731 and died 31 March 1802, and
Jane Swayberry, born about September 1733 and died 28 June 1825.
James was the oldest of the children, followed by John, Samuel,
Rebecca, Phoebe, Mary, William, and Isaac.21
The story of John Johnson is described in romantic terms in
Kupillas's book. She writes that he had been a Presbyterian minister
in the British Isles, but left "as a bridegroom" with Jane Swayberry
about 1756 because of persecution by the Church of England. She
supposes that they came from Wales, sailing from Ireland, but cannot
find any mention of the couple in passenger lists from that time. Nor
101
was she able to locate his name or parish in the Colonies, so she
concludes that he did not take up his former office here.2 2 Kupillas
pictures the man and wife arriving in Philadelphia, but goes on to say
they soon left because the city was dominated by the Society of
Friends. Then they went to Salem down the Delaware River, at­tracted
by earlier settlers of the Presbyterian faith. Life was not to be
easy there, however. "These early colonists exhibited the greatest
resolution and enduring fortitude, surrounded by Indians, a sickly
and howling wilderness, and very indifferently provided with even
the common necessaries of life."2 3 With that, Kupillas's description of
John Johnson and Jane Swayberry ends.
T H E BOTHERSOME J
That J in Lydia J. Challiss was still bothersome, however. There
are, of course, Johnsons in England. Sir Thomas Johnson of Liverpool
(1664-1729) was interested in transporting tobacco to England and
Jacobite prisoners to American plantations. Richard Johnson of Lon­don
(1573-1659?) stole verses from W i l l i am Shakespeare for his
lengthy poems, and Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the great writer
and lexicographer, is admired for his Dic t i o n a r y to this day.24
There was more to the story of the J to be discovered. Some
research located Lydia Johnson Challiss's name, correctly identifying
her parents as James Johnson and Christiana Swing. But the parents
of James were listed as Jane Suayberry, rather than Swayberry, born
October 1732 in Ireland, and the father of John as Jons Johannesson,
born not in the British Isles but on 9 May 1731 in Estamala, Älmeboda,
Kronoberg, in southern Sweden! His death date is correctly listed by
Kupillas as 31 March 1802 in Pitts Grove (Pittsgrove), Salem, New
Jersey.25 Rather than Wales, it appears that Lydia's grandfather was
from Älmeboda parish in Kronoberg County, in the province of
Småland.2 6
The difference between Johnson and Johannesson can be ac­counted
for as the anglicizing of his name, a practice quite common
among the Scandinavian immigrants.2 7 More bafflement comes from
the custom in Sweden of using a patronymic system in which a
person was named after the father. The son of a person whose given
102
name was Lars would receive the name Larsson and the daughter
would have the name Larsdotter, the children of Anders would be
named Andersson and Andersdotter, and so forth. Only after the
Middle Ages did the nobility have fixed names; the clergy, towns­people,
merchants, and tradesmen followed suit in the seventeenth
century. In rural Sweden patronymics were invariably used into the
middle of the nineteenth century.28
Thus, the records listed Jons Johannesson's father as Johannes
Jonsson, born 1700 at Gammalsmala, Älmeboda, Kronoberg, dying
2 March 1768 at Hjälmseryd, Jönköping, Sweden. He was married
on 5 July 1730 at Estamala, Älmsboda, Kronoberg, to Elin Jonsdotter,
born 7 January 1710 at Skärsnäs, Älmeboda, Kronoberg, christened
16 January 1710. Elin Jonsdotter's parents were Jons Abrahamsson
and Karin Larsdotter. The couple's children were Kirstin, Jons, Peter,
Gertrud, Abraham (died in infancy), Marta, and Abraham.2 9 Except
for Jons, it seems as if none of these children settled far from their
parents' home.30
Much attention to Swedish immigration concentrates on the dra­matic
attempt by the Swedish crown to establish a colony in America
between 1638 and 1655, and on the mass migration of the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The migration of Jons
Johannesson in the eighteenth century, however, reveals that at least
some emigration continued after the New Sweden colony was ab­sorbed
by the Dutch in 1655. The conditions that provoked the
difficult journey were somewhat different in the eighteenth than in
the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, however,
W H Y JONS JOHANNESSON C A M E TO AMERICA
Determining the motivation for Jons Johannesson to go to America
is difficult. It is likely that the family farm would have had to have
been divided among the many siblings, so perhaps he sought to
improve his own economic conditions by obtaining a larger area of
land to cultivate in the New World. In the absence of family records
or letters, however, actual reasons can only be surmised. Certainly
Sweden was far from a pleasant or promising place for a Småland
farmer's son.
103
During the eighteenth century Sweden fought four wars: one to
preserve its empire and three to try to restore some of its former
glory. In the longest and worst of these conflicts, the Great Northern
War, Denmark, Poland-Saxony, and Russia (initially) formed an alli­ance.
Twenty-one years of fighting cost Sweden most of its imperial
possessions in what is now Poland, the Baltic states, and northern
Germany, as well as parts of Finland. A short but disastrous war with
Russia in the early 1740s resulted in the loss of more Finnish territory
and considerable political freedom as well. Prussia was the target of
Swedish aggression in the Seven Years War.31
For the people of Sweden, these wars were terribly expensive in
human and material terms. (The Finns suffered the most, as their
country was occupied by Russian forces in both the Great Northern
War and the short Russo-Swedish war of the early 1740s.)
For Jons Johannesson, Sweden's involvement in the Seven Years
War (1756-63) might have had direct importance. Despite the
country's problems, commitments to France and the desire to re­cover
some of the power the country had held in the seventeenth
century drove Sweden's leaders to enter a conflict that looked like a
safe bet. (Prussia faced an alliance of Russia, the Habsburg Empire,
France, and Sweden.) Funded by subsidies and illegal loans from the
Riksbank, the war dragged on with a mixture of successes and fail­ures.
Prussia proved a far more resilient opponent than expected.
France was distracted by its war with Britain. Russia made a separate
peace. Sweden was lucky to escape with only the loss of part of
Pomerania.3 2
Wars were not the only problems faced by the Swedes. Another
was the overbearing power of the nobility for much of the century.
Between 1719 and 1772, during much of the so-called Era of Liberty,
a faction of the nobles called the Caps played a central role in affairs
of the state. The powers of the crown were reduced.3 3 During the
1750s and 1760s, factionalism, fed by Russian, English, and French
money, resulted in alternating periods of power between the more
liberal and reform-minded Hats and the conservative Caps.3 4 [It i s ,
however, i m p o r t a n t t o n o t e t h a t b o t h f a c t i o n s i n t r o d u c e d some i m p o r t a nt
changes to Sweden, i n c l u d i n g l e g i s l a t i o n t o b e g i n the process of the c o n s o l i d a ­tion
of peasant land h o l d i n g s , a n a t i o n a l p o p u l a t i o n census, and some mea-
104
s u r e of free speech and press. E d i t o r .]
Overall, little was done to alleviate the grinding poverty of the
peasants upon whom the financing of the state and its wars de­pended.
3 5 Taxes were an ever-present burden. Wartime inflation caused
prices in Sweden to double between 1755 and 1764.36
Poverty was especially merciless in Småland, the homeland of
Jons Johannesson. There is an old story that while God was occupied
in making Skåne, the southernmost region of Sweden (after 1658), a
lush farmland, the devil stole past the Lord and formed Småland.
Thus, it is a harsh, uncompromising land of stones, trees, and more
stones. When God caught the devil in the act, it was too late to do
anything about the terrain.3 7 So God made the smålänningar, the
people of Småland, practical, thrifty, industrious, and intelligent.
Throughout Sweden they are seen as proud, independent, tolerant,
and persistent. They are also known to be poetic and romantic, and
this has found expression in literature and art both in Sweden and in
America.3 8 We do not know what personal characteristics Jons
Johannesson had, but it is likely that he possessed many of these.
Thus, it was during troubled times that Jons Johannesson de­parted
from his home in Sweden. The war, in which young farm boys
were pressed into service, along with the tyranny of the noble estate,
inheritance practices, population growth, and the ever worsening
impoverishment of the underclasses in Småland certainly were some
of his motivations. As for when he sailed, most likely it was in or
around 1756, the year Kupillas suggests in The H o u s e of John Johnson.39
No doubt the ship that carried the young immigrant stopped in a
port in the western British Isles to replenish its supplies before depart­ing
for the New World. .
W H Y JONS JOHANNESSON C A M E TO N E W JERSEY
Why Jons Johannesson came to Salem County on the banks of
the Delaware River is not known either. However, this area was part
of the New Sweden Colony founded in 1638. Swedish place names
abound here, such as Dolbows Landing, modified from Anders Larsson
Dalbo, who worked on a plantation on the Schuykill River as early
as 1644, and Elsinboro, a town on the Delaware River between
105
Alloway Creek and Salem River in Salem County whose name was
derived from the fort built by the seventeenth-century Swedish gov­ernor
Johan Printz, named Nya Elfsborg, after the one in Göteborg,
Sweden.4 0
Other names found in this area of New Jersey are Helms Cove,
after Andrew Helm, who opened a tavern there in the 1730s, and
Keans Lake, altered from Måns Keen, who was born in Uppland,
Sweden, in 1664 and died at his home in Salem County at the age of
105 in 1770. Salem County also has Lower Swedes Bridge Road and
Mounces Creek, probably from the personal name Måns, now angli­cized.
4 1 Thus, the region to which Jon Johannesson came held a
Scandinavian population, a natural attraction for one seeking to
establish himself in a new world. In this, Jons Johannesson followed
the pattern usual to most ethnic groups who have immigrated to
America, that of seeking out those of one's former country to ease
the transition into a new culture and language.
A SWEDISH-AMERICAN IN T H E REVOLUTIONARY W A R
According to Kupillas, during the Revolutionary War James
Johnson served as a private in Captain Jacob DuBois's Company,
Salem County Militia in the Colonial Army, fighting in various con­flicts,
including the fierce battle of Fort Mercer and Red Bank.42
While the role that James Johnson played is not known, the situation
of his unit can be described. In September 1777 the British had
taken Philadelphia, which lay a few miles upriver from the fort. As
the Americans had interrupted the supplies to the city from the
landward side, the British had to rely upon the Delaware River. O n 5
October 1777 the American Captain William Peery, who, with a
company of one hundred men, guarded Cape Henlopen at the mouth
of the river, wrote to General Caesar Rodney: "This morning 36 Sail
of the Enemies Ships went past this Town up the Bay and this Evening
47 more were seen from the light House Standing in for the Cape."43
This warning announced that the British Admiral Lord Howe's
fleet was about to sail up the Delaware. The Americans had created
some obstructions, however. A t Billingsport, south of Red Bank, was
a double line of chevaux-de-frise crossing the river from the New
106
Jersey shore over to Billings Island. These were crates made of heavy
timbers that had been sunk with stones. Attached to them were
wood beams slanting upwards and downstream, each tapered and
tipped with iron points. They would rip open the bottoms of ships
trying to sail over them. O n the Jersey shore was a small redoubt, or
hastily raised enclosed fortification, to guard the lines. O n 2 October,
however, this little fort had fallen and a safe channel opened up
through which six British ships sailed. Above this lay thirty chevaux
in three lines, extending from just below the Schuylkill River mouth
to the Red Bank on the Jersey shore, with forts at either end. Behind
the chevaux was an American fleet consisting of the frigate M o n t ­g
o m e r y and some smaller craft.44
Above the river lay Fort Mercer on the Red Bank. General
Washington had placed a Rhode Island Continental regiment under
Colonel Christopher Greene there and had asked New Jersey for a
militia to strengthen the unit. As his request met with little response,
he added another Rhode Island Continental regiment under Colonel
Israel Angell, making a total of about four hundred men. Washing­ton
also sent the Chevalier de Mauduit du Plessia, a youthful French
engineer, to assist them. He reported that the Americans were "little
practiced in the art of fortification" and had overbuilt the fortifica­tions
beyond their ability to retain them. He created a new wall
along the river bank, resulting in a nearly pentagonal arrangement
surrounded by a ditch, an abatis (a rampart studded with sharpened
stakes or posts), and fourteen guns mounted on the parapets.45 The
purpose of the abatis was to slow down enemy troops and horses,
making them better targets for the fort's defenders.
Twelve hundred Hessian troops employed by the British crossed
the Delaware at Camden, south of Philadelphia, and marched down
the Jersey side. A young apprentice blacksmith, Jones Cattell, alerted
Colonel Green that a superior force was approaching from the north.46
When they arrived, they assembled below the fort. Then, with a flag
and drum roll, the Hessian officer, Colonel Carl Emil Ulrich von
Donop, came forward and shouted: "The King of England orders his
rebellious subjects to lay down their arms and they are warned that if
they stand the battle, no quarters whatever will be given."4 7 The fact
that it was a despised German who delivered the insults infuriated
107
the Americans, and Greene responded that he would indeed do
battle, and that no quarter (that is, no mercy) would be shown on
either side.
With that, at about four in the afternoon4 8 the Hessians attacked
both the northern and southern wings of the fort. They swarmed over
the northern breastworks, the soldiers shouting "Vittoria!" and wav­ing
their hats in the air.4 9 But, to their surprise, they found these areas
abandoned and a ten foot wall facing them.5 0 They negotiated the
abatis with its sharp points and crossed the ditch, reaching the berm.
But, since they had not brought with them scaling ladders, they
paused. U p to that point the Americans had not fired. Suddenly
grapeshot and bullets came down upon the Hessians on both flanks,
and they fell in heaps. Said one of the officers, "It may well be
doubted whether so few men in so small a space of time had ever
delivered a deadlier fire."51
The Hessian officer desperately tried to rally his men, but he too
fell, mortally wounded. His men hesitated and then tried again on
the southern flank, but here they were suddenly exposed to heavy
fire from the galleys in the river below. Finally the Hessians withdrew
to the forest and retreated. The day ended with 371 Hessians killed,
wounded, or captured, including 22 officers. Twenty of the Hessians
were taken prisoner when they were found clinging to the parapet
hiding from the Americans' bullets. Of the Americans in the fort,
there were 14 dead and 23 wounded.5 2 Both American and British
wounded were taken to an emergency hospital set up in a house
occupied by A n n Whitall just south of the fort. The story is told that
she continued to spin her wool as the battle raged around her, and
carried her spinning wheel to the cellar only after a cannon ball
struck a wall of the house.53
This wasn't all. O n the same day, the British frigates A u g u s t a,
Roebuck, L i v e r p o o l , and Pearl and the sloop Merlin ran aground. The
Americans opened fire on the A u g u s t a and the Merlin, forcing the
British to abandon and burn them.5 4 In short, on 21 October 1777
the British did not have a very good day. For the Americans, and for
the almost-twenty-year-old James Johnson, it was certainly an occa­sion
to rejoice.
108
T H E J DISCOVERED
Thus, the J in Lydia J. Challiss's name was derived not from
Wales or Ireland but Sweden and the southern province of Småland,
not from the Presbyterian but the Lutheran faith, and not from the
clergy but farmers. Further, the twenty-five-year-old Jons Johannesson
probably came to escape not religious persecution, but military con­scription
and poverty. What duties Jons Johannesson saw during the
Revolutionary War are not known, but it is possible that the forty-six-
year-old father fought beside his son in the Battle of Fort Mercer
in 1777, a battle in which he was defending his new homeland from
an oppressive ruler and war-like realm of the Old World not too
different from the kingdom he had left in old Sweden.
The J in Lydia J. Challiss's name, indeed, has a history behind it.
It tells us a lot about the Swedish heritage of this woman, which
surely formed her personality as well—those qualities of industry,
economy, and refinement observed by her contemporaries. Some­how,
Lydia J. Challiss looks out from her picture in the family book a
bit more friendly now, and certainly not as scary.
ENDNOTES
1. John R. Murphy, The M e m o i r of Rev. James M . Challiss (Philadelphia,
Penn.: Jas. S. Rodgers, 1870).
2. Ibid., engraving by John Sartain of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, following
page 110.
3. Ibid., 104.
4. Ibid., 105.
5. Ibid., 105-6.
6. Ibid., 106.
7. Murphy.
8. Rebecca Chaky and Ruth Martin, Ruth Marlin Family Tree 1 9 9 5 , B r o w n ,
C h a l l i s s , E a r h a r t , H a r r e s , M a r t i n , M e l l e n b r u c h , M i l b a n k , T o n s i n g , W a l k er
(Friendswood, Tex.: Never Done Press, 1995), 23-45.
9. Murphy, 104-5.
10. I am grateful to Rick Tonsing for sending me pages from The H o u s e of
John Johnson ( 1 7 3 1 - 1 8 0 2 ) Salem C o u n t y , N e w Jersey A n d His Descendants .Show­ing
Descent f r o m C H A R L E M A G N E , W I L L I A M T H E C O N Q U E R O R ,
PLANTAGENET KINGS FRENCH HUGUENOTS and H E R E D I T O R Y S O C l -
109
ETY MEMBERSHIPS, by Mary Coates Martin Kupillas (Baltimore, Md.: Gate­way
Press, 1979).
11. Kupillas, 8, and Murphy, 104, give Lydia Johnson Challiss's birth date as
3 February 1803.
12. Kupillas, 8.
13. Chaky and Martin, 28.
14. Kupillas, 4-5
15. Ibid., 4-9.
16. Kupillas inserts the variant Christenah after her name, 3.
17. Kupillas, 3.
18. LDS, Ancestral File, "Descendancy Chart," copyright 1987 and June
1998 by Intellectual Reserve, Inc.
19. Nils William Olsson, "Naming Patterns Among Swedish-Americans,"
Swedish A m e r i c a n Genealogist XIV:2 (June 1994): 83-100.
20. Ibid.
21. Kupillas, 3-5.
22. Ibid., 1. She was not able to locate his name on the list of the Society of
Descendants of Colonial Clergy.
23. Ibid., 2.
24. E n c y c l o p e d i a Britannica (1963), vol. 13.
25. Kupillas, 3.
26. Ancestral File, "Descendancy Chart." These files omit the all-important
å, ä, and ö in Scandinavian personal names and place names, which are needed
if one is to find them in local records and maps.
27. For example, the original Swedish names Jansson, Jeansson, Jonsson,
Johannesson, Johansson, Jonasson, and Jonsson might all become Johnson,
Johnston, or even Jones. Olsson, 88.
28. Ibid., 24-25.
29. By an ancient Swedish custom, the name of a dead child was often
given to the next one born of the same sex, thinking that somehow the soul of
the former now inhabited the new child. H. Arnold Barton, The Search for
A n c e s t o r s : A Swedish-American Family Saga (Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois
University Press, 1979), 27.
30. Ancestral File, "Descendancy Chart."
31. Franklin D. Scott, Sweden: The Nation's History (Minneapolis, Minn.:
The University of Minnesota Press, 1977), 238; and B. Nordstrom, Scandinavia
since 1500 (Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press, 2000).
32. Nordstrom, 117.
33. Scott, 238 ff.
34. Ibid., 244 ff., and Nordstrom, 107-10.
35. Scott, 238.
110
36. T. K. Derry, A History of Scandinavia: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, F i n -
land, and Iceland (Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press, 1983),
179.
37. Fodor's Scandinavia, 1981 (New York: Fodor's Modern Guides, 1981),
429.
38. Barton, 14.
39. Kupillas, 1.
40. Otto Robert Landelius, Swedish Place-Names in North A m e r i c a (Carbondale,
Ill.: published for the Swedish-American Historical Society, Southern Illinois
University Press, 1985), 168-70.
41. Ibid., 170-72.
42. Landelius.
43. Christopher Ward, The War of The Revolution, ed. John Richard Alden
(New York: Macmillan, 1952), 372.
44. Ibid., 372-73.
45. Ibid., 373-74.
46. Historical marker, Red Bank Battlefield Park, New Jersey.
47. Ward, 374.
48 Historical marker, Red Bank Battlefield Park, New Jersey.
49. Ward, 374.
50. Historical marker, Red Bank Battlefield Park, New Jersey.
51. Ward, 374.
52. Ibid., 375-76.
53. Historical marker, Whitall House, Red Bank Battlefield Park, New Jer­sey.
54. Ward, 376.
111

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The "J" of Lydia J. Challiss
E R N S T F. T O N S I NG
T H E "SCARY PICTURE"
As a child playing in the large, old library of Grandmother
Ruth Tonsing, I enjoyed opening the huge, glass doors of
the cabinets and taking the books down—carefully, as I
had been taught to respect books at an early age—and carrying them
over to the table in the center of the room. Turning the pages,
wonderful worlds far from Atchison, Kansas, would come before my
eyes, images of cathedrals in France, castles in Germany, and ancient,
ruined temples in Greece and Rome.
There was one picture I did not like. It was in a book that had to
be handled most carefully of all: John R. Murphy's The M e m o i r of Rev.
James M . C h a l l i s s . 1 In the middle of it was an oval engraving of a
grim, older woman dressed in a black dress with a lace-edged collar
wrapped around her neck and crossed left over right in front, fas­tened
by a brooch in the middle. Out of the whiteness of this scarf
rose a tall neck supporting a thin face. The light came down from
above to illuminate it. There was a slight dimple in the chin, deep
furrows descending from the sides of the down-turned mouth, and
two others reaching down from the nostrils under very high cheek­bones.
The eyes stared unblinking through octagonal wire glasses.
The black hair was parted in the middle above a high forehead and
came straight down on both sides, suddenly erupting in four thick,
pendant curls, two on each side, behind the ears.2 It is the image of
which nightmares are made!
ERNST F. T O N S I N G is a professor of N e w Testament and Greek at California
L u t h e r a n University. His research and publication topics range from A l e x a n d e r the
G r e a t to rune stones, Viking ships, Swedish folk art, and Swedish A m e r i c a . H e has
been active in the A m e r i c a n Scandinavian Foundation in T h o u s a n d Oaks (Califor­n
i a ) , the Swedish-American Historical Association of California, and C L U ' s Scandi­navian
Festival. This is his second contribution to the Quarterly.
Grandmother had shown me this picture and told me that it was
of her Great-grandmother Challiss. A t that time I was less than
impressed. I'd rather forget the image because it was just too scary. I
wasn't sure that I wanted to have a relative like that lurking about.
97
As far as I was concerned, that book with its picture could stay on its
shelf. I had far more interesting, and less ghastly, ones to look at.
Later, Grandmother gave that book to my parents, and for a long
time they kept it on a Queen Anne table by a wingback chair in the
living room. I didn't open it. Now, years later, I have that book and,
as an adult, have mustered the courage to gaze at that page again.
The picture is still forbidding. Perhaps it reflects the age and the
solemnity with which one sat for a portrait as much as the character
of the person depicted. The severe curls and lace probably were
thought to be quite stylish at the time, as were the "granny" glasses.
And maybe the upright head and steady gaze reflect the woman's
upbringing and position in the community.
T H E PERSON IN T H E PICTURE: LYDIA J. CHALLISS
Below the picture is her name, "Lydia J. Challiss." In his M e m o i r
her husband, Rev. James M . Challiss, notes his marriage to her on 23
August 1823 and writes that "this lady has proved to me a rich
blessing, a faithful, pious wife, an affectionate, managing, kind-hearted
mother to our children—Joseph, William, Luther, George, and Emma."3
The M e m o i r reveals more of the character Lydia Challiss received
from her parents:
She was favored with the careful training of these earnest
Christian parents, and the hallowed influence of a lovely
Christian home, where strict filial obedience, and habits of
industry and economy were beautifully blended with paren­tal
indulgence, refinement, and comparative affluence.4
It also tells us of the results of such an upbringing:
The moulding [sic] influence of these privileges was not lost
upon the youngest daughter of the household. She was natu­rally
amiable, and thoughtful of others, and ever self-sacrific­ing
to the comfort and pleasures of those she loved. She
readily acquired those habits of industry and economy, and
the refinement which so marked her father's family.5
98
Her "joyful" piety is noted, along with her baptism on 17 De­cember
1820 at the First Baptist Church in Salem, New Jersey.6 She
matured, according to the M e m o i r , "endowed with the graces of true
womanly Christian character," well fitted to be the wife of a Baptist
minister. In that role, the book says:
She was far-sighted and frugal in managing their domestic
affairs, and in using their limited resources to the best advan­tage;
ever giving to their home an air of ease, comfort and
refinement, which made it home-like and pleasant to the
humblest disciple, and commended it to the admiration of
the affluent, and even the fastidious.7
Contemporaries of Lydia Challiss, then, had a high estimation of
her, much different from the image projected by the oval picture in
the book.
T H E J IN LYDIA J. CHALLISS
The name Lydia is well known to those who have read the
biblical Acts of the Apostles, for that was the name of the first
convert of Saint Paul after his arrival in Europe. Challiss is the name
of a large family with roots in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.8 It was her
middle initial under her picture that intrigued me—an elegant, cur­sive
J, framed by the other two names.
The Memoir reveals that this J stands for Johnson, and that this
woman was the daughter of Deacon James Johnson, who had been
born in Pittsgrove, Salem, New Jersey, and of Christianna (this is the
spelling of her name in the Memoir) Swing, also of Salem County,
New Jersey. They were farmers who started out humbly but, through
"careful perseverance," according to the Memoir, became among the
most wealthy in the county. These parents moved to Mannington for
a while, and then to Penn's Neck, New Jersey. They raised ten chil­dren;
the second youngest was Lydia. The M e m o i r states that James
and Christianna had been Presbyterian but joined the Baptist Church
in Salem, where he became Deacon and President of the Board of
99
Trustees.9
Although the Memoir has nothing more on these parents, a cousin
sent me a few pages of a narrative entitled The H o u s e of John Johnson,
by Mary Kupillas, in which the family is described.1 0 Along with
James and Christiana (cp. Christianna in the M e m o i r ) Johnson, and
her husband, Rev. James M . Challis (cp. Challiss), Lydia is men­tioned,
but is given the birth year of 1804 rather than 1803 as stated
in the Memoir.1 1 Further, it says that "William was a physician, mar­ried
without issue."12 However, it is known that William L. Challiss
and his wife, Mary A n n Harres, had twelve children—nine girls and
three boys.1 3 These three errors within one paragraph caught my
attention.
100
JAMES JOHNSON A N D CHRISTIANNA SWING
Kupillas lists the birth of the father of Lydia Challiss, James Johnson,
as 31 October 1757, and his death at eighty years on 9 February
1837.1 4 She also mentions that the family rented a large farm in
Mannington, New Jersey, until the spring of 1809, when they moved
to Lower Penn's Neck, near Salem, where they became quite success­ful.
Of sixteen children, the ten who lived were Sarah, Ruth, Will­iam,
Mary, Abraham, Rebecca, John, Ann, Lydia, and Rachel. Their
lives are described in this book.15
Regarding the mother of Lydia Challiss, Christianna1 6 Swing,
Kupillas has her born in Pittsgrove, New Jersey (no date given), her
marriage to James Johnson on 28 February 1781, her death on 19
March 1825, and that she is buried with her husband at Salem
Baptist Church, New Jersey.17 Nothing more is said of her by this
author. Further research has shown that Christianna Swing was born
25 October 1764 in Pittsgrove, Salem, New Jersey, and her parents
were Samuel Schwing, born 8 June 1732 in Hanhoffen, Bischweiler,
Alsace, France, and Sarah Diament, born 15 March 1730 in Salem,
New Jersey.18 This anglicizing of a name to accommodate American
ears was not unusual and is frequently encountered in immigrant
records.1 9 The family continues back through seven generations in
Alsace.2 0
JOHN JOHNSON A N D J A N E SWAYBERRY
The parents of James Johnson are named by Kupillas as John
Johnson, born about December 1731 and died 31 March 1802, and
Jane Swayberry, born about September 1733 and died 28 June 1825.
James was the oldest of the children, followed by John, Samuel,
Rebecca, Phoebe, Mary, William, and Isaac.21
The story of John Johnson is described in romantic terms in
Kupillas's book. She writes that he had been a Presbyterian minister
in the British Isles, but left "as a bridegroom" with Jane Swayberry
about 1756 because of persecution by the Church of England. She
supposes that they came from Wales, sailing from Ireland, but cannot
find any mention of the couple in passenger lists from that time. Nor
101
was she able to locate his name or parish in the Colonies, so she
concludes that he did not take up his former office here.2 2 Kupillas
pictures the man and wife arriving in Philadelphia, but goes on to say
they soon left because the city was dominated by the Society of
Friends. Then they went to Salem down the Delaware River, at­tracted
by earlier settlers of the Presbyterian faith. Life was not to be
easy there, however. "These early colonists exhibited the greatest
resolution and enduring fortitude, surrounded by Indians, a sickly
and howling wilderness, and very indifferently provided with even
the common necessaries of life."2 3 With that, Kupillas's description of
John Johnson and Jane Swayberry ends.
T H E BOTHERSOME J
That J in Lydia J. Challiss was still bothersome, however. There
are, of course, Johnsons in England. Sir Thomas Johnson of Liverpool
(1664-1729) was interested in transporting tobacco to England and
Jacobite prisoners to American plantations. Richard Johnson of Lon­don
(1573-1659?) stole verses from W i l l i am Shakespeare for his
lengthy poems, and Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the great writer
and lexicographer, is admired for his Dic t i o n a r y to this day.24
There was more to the story of the J to be discovered. Some
research located Lydia Johnson Challiss's name, correctly identifying
her parents as James Johnson and Christiana Swing. But the parents
of James were listed as Jane Suayberry, rather than Swayberry, born
October 1732 in Ireland, and the father of John as Jons Johannesson,
born not in the British Isles but on 9 May 1731 in Estamala, Älmeboda,
Kronoberg, in southern Sweden! His death date is correctly listed by
Kupillas as 31 March 1802 in Pitts Grove (Pittsgrove), Salem, New
Jersey.25 Rather than Wales, it appears that Lydia's grandfather was
from Älmeboda parish in Kronoberg County, in the province of
Småland.2 6
The difference between Johnson and Johannesson can be ac­counted
for as the anglicizing of his name, a practice quite common
among the Scandinavian immigrants.2 7 More bafflement comes from
the custom in Sweden of using a patronymic system in which a
person was named after the father. The son of a person whose given
102
name was Lars would receive the name Larsson and the daughter
would have the name Larsdotter, the children of Anders would be
named Andersson and Andersdotter, and so forth. Only after the
Middle Ages did the nobility have fixed names; the clergy, towns­people,
merchants, and tradesmen followed suit in the seventeenth
century. In rural Sweden patronymics were invariably used into the
middle of the nineteenth century.28
Thus, the records listed Jons Johannesson's father as Johannes
Jonsson, born 1700 at Gammalsmala, Älmeboda, Kronoberg, dying
2 March 1768 at Hjälmseryd, Jönköping, Sweden. He was married
on 5 July 1730 at Estamala, Älmsboda, Kronoberg, to Elin Jonsdotter,
born 7 January 1710 at Skärsnäs, Älmeboda, Kronoberg, christened
16 January 1710. Elin Jonsdotter's parents were Jons Abrahamsson
and Karin Larsdotter. The couple's children were Kirstin, Jons, Peter,
Gertrud, Abraham (died in infancy), Marta, and Abraham.2 9 Except
for Jons, it seems as if none of these children settled far from their
parents' home.30
Much attention to Swedish immigration concentrates on the dra­matic
attempt by the Swedish crown to establish a colony in America
between 1638 and 1655, and on the mass migration of the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The migration of Jons
Johannesson in the eighteenth century, however, reveals that at least
some emigration continued after the New Sweden colony was ab­sorbed
by the Dutch in 1655. The conditions that provoked the
difficult journey were somewhat different in the eighteenth than in
the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, however,
W H Y JONS JOHANNESSON C A M E TO AMERICA
Determining the motivation for Jons Johannesson to go to America
is difficult. It is likely that the family farm would have had to have
been divided among the many siblings, so perhaps he sought to
improve his own economic conditions by obtaining a larger area of
land to cultivate in the New World. In the absence of family records
or letters, however, actual reasons can only be surmised. Certainly
Sweden was far from a pleasant or promising place for a Småland
farmer's son.
103
During the eighteenth century Sweden fought four wars: one to
preserve its empire and three to try to restore some of its former
glory. In the longest and worst of these conflicts, the Great Northern
War, Denmark, Poland-Saxony, and Russia (initially) formed an alli­ance.
Twenty-one years of fighting cost Sweden most of its imperial
possessions in what is now Poland, the Baltic states, and northern
Germany, as well as parts of Finland. A short but disastrous war with
Russia in the early 1740s resulted in the loss of more Finnish territory
and considerable political freedom as well. Prussia was the target of
Swedish aggression in the Seven Years War.31
For the people of Sweden, these wars were terribly expensive in
human and material terms. (The Finns suffered the most, as their
country was occupied by Russian forces in both the Great Northern
War and the short Russo-Swedish war of the early 1740s.)
For Jons Johannesson, Sweden's involvement in the Seven Years
War (1756-63) might have had direct importance. Despite the
country's problems, commitments to France and the desire to re­cover
some of the power the country had held in the seventeenth
century drove Sweden's leaders to enter a conflict that looked like a
safe bet. (Prussia faced an alliance of Russia, the Habsburg Empire,
France, and Sweden.) Funded by subsidies and illegal loans from the
Riksbank, the war dragged on with a mixture of successes and fail­ures.
Prussia proved a far more resilient opponent than expected.
France was distracted by its war with Britain. Russia made a separate
peace. Sweden was lucky to escape with only the loss of part of
Pomerania.3 2
Wars were not the only problems faced by the Swedes. Another
was the overbearing power of the nobility for much of the century.
Between 1719 and 1772, during much of the so-called Era of Liberty,
a faction of the nobles called the Caps played a central role in affairs
of the state. The powers of the crown were reduced.3 3 During the
1750s and 1760s, factionalism, fed by Russian, English, and French
money, resulted in alternating periods of power between the more
liberal and reform-minded Hats and the conservative Caps.3 4 [It i s ,
however, i m p o r t a n t t o n o t e t h a t b o t h f a c t i o n s i n t r o d u c e d some i m p o r t a nt
changes to Sweden, i n c l u d i n g l e g i s l a t i o n t o b e g i n the process of the c o n s o l i d a ­tion
of peasant land h o l d i n g s , a n a t i o n a l p o p u l a t i o n census, and some mea-
104
s u r e of free speech and press. E d i t o r .]
Overall, little was done to alleviate the grinding poverty of the
peasants upon whom the financing of the state and its wars de­pended.
3 5 Taxes were an ever-present burden. Wartime inflation caused
prices in Sweden to double between 1755 and 1764.36
Poverty was especially merciless in Småland, the homeland of
Jons Johannesson. There is an old story that while God was occupied
in making Skåne, the southernmost region of Sweden (after 1658), a
lush farmland, the devil stole past the Lord and formed Småland.
Thus, it is a harsh, uncompromising land of stones, trees, and more
stones. When God caught the devil in the act, it was too late to do
anything about the terrain.3 7 So God made the smålänningar, the
people of Småland, practical, thrifty, industrious, and intelligent.
Throughout Sweden they are seen as proud, independent, tolerant,
and persistent. They are also known to be poetic and romantic, and
this has found expression in literature and art both in Sweden and in
America.3 8 We do not know what personal characteristics Jons
Johannesson had, but it is likely that he possessed many of these.
Thus, it was during troubled times that Jons Johannesson de­parted
from his home in Sweden. The war, in which young farm boys
were pressed into service, along with the tyranny of the noble estate,
inheritance practices, population growth, and the ever worsening
impoverishment of the underclasses in Småland certainly were some
of his motivations. As for when he sailed, most likely it was in or
around 1756, the year Kupillas suggests in The H o u s e of John Johnson.39
No doubt the ship that carried the young immigrant stopped in a
port in the western British Isles to replenish its supplies before depart­ing
for the New World. .
W H Y JONS JOHANNESSON C A M E TO N E W JERSEY
Why Jons Johannesson came to Salem County on the banks of
the Delaware River is not known either. However, this area was part
of the New Sweden Colony founded in 1638. Swedish place names
abound here, such as Dolbows Landing, modified from Anders Larsson
Dalbo, who worked on a plantation on the Schuykill River as early
as 1644, and Elsinboro, a town on the Delaware River between
105
Alloway Creek and Salem River in Salem County whose name was
derived from the fort built by the seventeenth-century Swedish gov­ernor
Johan Printz, named Nya Elfsborg, after the one in Göteborg,
Sweden.4 0
Other names found in this area of New Jersey are Helms Cove,
after Andrew Helm, who opened a tavern there in the 1730s, and
Keans Lake, altered from Måns Keen, who was born in Uppland,
Sweden, in 1664 and died at his home in Salem County at the age of
105 in 1770. Salem County also has Lower Swedes Bridge Road and
Mounces Creek, probably from the personal name Måns, now angli­cized.
4 1 Thus, the region to which Jon Johannesson came held a
Scandinavian population, a natural attraction for one seeking to
establish himself in a new world. In this, Jons Johannesson followed
the pattern usual to most ethnic groups who have immigrated to
America, that of seeking out those of one's former country to ease
the transition into a new culture and language.
A SWEDISH-AMERICAN IN T H E REVOLUTIONARY W A R
According to Kupillas, during the Revolutionary War James
Johnson served as a private in Captain Jacob DuBois's Company,
Salem County Militia in the Colonial Army, fighting in various con­flicts,
including the fierce battle of Fort Mercer and Red Bank.42
While the role that James Johnson played is not known, the situation
of his unit can be described. In September 1777 the British had
taken Philadelphia, which lay a few miles upriver from the fort. As
the Americans had interrupted the supplies to the city from the
landward side, the British had to rely upon the Delaware River. O n 5
October 1777 the American Captain William Peery, who, with a
company of one hundred men, guarded Cape Henlopen at the mouth
of the river, wrote to General Caesar Rodney: "This morning 36 Sail
of the Enemies Ships went past this Town up the Bay and this Evening
47 more were seen from the light House Standing in for the Cape."43
This warning announced that the British Admiral Lord Howe's
fleet was about to sail up the Delaware. The Americans had created
some obstructions, however. A t Billingsport, south of Red Bank, was
a double line of chevaux-de-frise crossing the river from the New
106
Jersey shore over to Billings Island. These were crates made of heavy
timbers that had been sunk with stones. Attached to them were
wood beams slanting upwards and downstream, each tapered and
tipped with iron points. They would rip open the bottoms of ships
trying to sail over them. O n the Jersey shore was a small redoubt, or
hastily raised enclosed fortification, to guard the lines. O n 2 October,
however, this little fort had fallen and a safe channel opened up
through which six British ships sailed. Above this lay thirty chevaux
in three lines, extending from just below the Schuylkill River mouth
to the Red Bank on the Jersey shore, with forts at either end. Behind
the chevaux was an American fleet consisting of the frigate M o n t ­g
o m e r y and some smaller craft.44
Above the river lay Fort Mercer on the Red Bank. General
Washington had placed a Rhode Island Continental regiment under
Colonel Christopher Greene there and had asked New Jersey for a
militia to strengthen the unit. As his request met with little response,
he added another Rhode Island Continental regiment under Colonel
Israel Angell, making a total of about four hundred men. Washing­ton
also sent the Chevalier de Mauduit du Plessia, a youthful French
engineer, to assist them. He reported that the Americans were "little
practiced in the art of fortification" and had overbuilt the fortifica­tions
beyond their ability to retain them. He created a new wall
along the river bank, resulting in a nearly pentagonal arrangement
surrounded by a ditch, an abatis (a rampart studded with sharpened
stakes or posts), and fourteen guns mounted on the parapets.45 The
purpose of the abatis was to slow down enemy troops and horses,
making them better targets for the fort's defenders.
Twelve hundred Hessian troops employed by the British crossed
the Delaware at Camden, south of Philadelphia, and marched down
the Jersey side. A young apprentice blacksmith, Jones Cattell, alerted
Colonel Green that a superior force was approaching from the north.46
When they arrived, they assembled below the fort. Then, with a flag
and drum roll, the Hessian officer, Colonel Carl Emil Ulrich von
Donop, came forward and shouted: "The King of England orders his
rebellious subjects to lay down their arms and they are warned that if
they stand the battle, no quarters whatever will be given."4 7 The fact
that it was a despised German who delivered the insults infuriated
107
the Americans, and Greene responded that he would indeed do
battle, and that no quarter (that is, no mercy) would be shown on
either side.
With that, at about four in the afternoon4 8 the Hessians attacked
both the northern and southern wings of the fort. They swarmed over
the northern breastworks, the soldiers shouting "Vittoria!" and wav­ing
their hats in the air.4 9 But, to their surprise, they found these areas
abandoned and a ten foot wall facing them.5 0 They negotiated the
abatis with its sharp points and crossed the ditch, reaching the berm.
But, since they had not brought with them scaling ladders, they
paused. U p to that point the Americans had not fired. Suddenly
grapeshot and bullets came down upon the Hessians on both flanks,
and they fell in heaps. Said one of the officers, "It may well be
doubted whether so few men in so small a space of time had ever
delivered a deadlier fire."51
The Hessian officer desperately tried to rally his men, but he too
fell, mortally wounded. His men hesitated and then tried again on
the southern flank, but here they were suddenly exposed to heavy
fire from the galleys in the river below. Finally the Hessians withdrew
to the forest and retreated. The day ended with 371 Hessians killed,
wounded, or captured, including 22 officers. Twenty of the Hessians
were taken prisoner when they were found clinging to the parapet
hiding from the Americans' bullets. Of the Americans in the fort,
there were 14 dead and 23 wounded.5 2 Both American and British
wounded were taken to an emergency hospital set up in a house
occupied by A n n Whitall just south of the fort. The story is told that
she continued to spin her wool as the battle raged around her, and
carried her spinning wheel to the cellar only after a cannon ball
struck a wall of the house.53
This wasn't all. O n the same day, the British frigates A u g u s t a,
Roebuck, L i v e r p o o l , and Pearl and the sloop Merlin ran aground. The
Americans opened fire on the A u g u s t a and the Merlin, forcing the
British to abandon and burn them.5 4 In short, on 21 October 1777
the British did not have a very good day. For the Americans, and for
the almost-twenty-year-old James Johnson, it was certainly an occa­sion
to rejoice.
108
T H E J DISCOVERED
Thus, the J in Lydia J. Challiss's name was derived not from
Wales or Ireland but Sweden and the southern province of Småland,
not from the Presbyterian but the Lutheran faith, and not from the
clergy but farmers. Further, the twenty-five-year-old Jons Johannesson
probably came to escape not religious persecution, but military con­scription
and poverty. What duties Jons Johannesson saw during the
Revolutionary War are not known, but it is possible that the forty-six-
year-old father fought beside his son in the Battle of Fort Mercer
in 1777, a battle in which he was defending his new homeland from
an oppressive ruler and war-like realm of the Old World not too
different from the kingdom he had left in old Sweden.
The J in Lydia J. Challiss's name, indeed, has a history behind it.
It tells us a lot about the Swedish heritage of this woman, which
surely formed her personality as well—those qualities of industry,
economy, and refinement observed by her contemporaries. Some­how,
Lydia J. Challiss looks out from her picture in the family book a
bit more friendly now, and certainly not as scary.
ENDNOTES
1. John R. Murphy, The M e m o i r of Rev. James M . Challiss (Philadelphia,
Penn.: Jas. S. Rodgers, 1870).
2. Ibid., engraving by John Sartain of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, following
page 110.
3. Ibid., 104.
4. Ibid., 105.
5. Ibid., 105-6.
6. Ibid., 106.
7. Murphy.
8. Rebecca Chaky and Ruth Martin, Ruth Marlin Family Tree 1 9 9 5 , B r o w n ,
C h a l l i s s , E a r h a r t , H a r r e s , M a r t i n , M e l l e n b r u c h , M i l b a n k , T o n s i n g , W a l k er
(Friendswood, Tex.: Never Done Press, 1995), 23-45.
9. Murphy, 104-5.
10. I am grateful to Rick Tonsing for sending me pages from The H o u s e of
John Johnson ( 1 7 3 1 - 1 8 0 2 ) Salem C o u n t y , N e w Jersey A n d His Descendants .Show­ing
Descent f r o m C H A R L E M A G N E , W I L L I A M T H E C O N Q U E R O R ,
PLANTAGENET KINGS FRENCH HUGUENOTS and H E R E D I T O R Y S O C l -
109
ETY MEMBERSHIPS, by Mary Coates Martin Kupillas (Baltimore, Md.: Gate­way
Press, 1979).
11. Kupillas, 8, and Murphy, 104, give Lydia Johnson Challiss's birth date as
3 February 1803.
12. Kupillas, 8.
13. Chaky and Martin, 28.
14. Kupillas, 4-5
15. Ibid., 4-9.
16. Kupillas inserts the variant Christenah after her name, 3.
17. Kupillas, 3.
18. LDS, Ancestral File, "Descendancy Chart," copyright 1987 and June
1998 by Intellectual Reserve, Inc.
19. Nils William Olsson, "Naming Patterns Among Swedish-Americans,"
Swedish A m e r i c a n Genealogist XIV:2 (June 1994): 83-100.
20. Ibid.
21. Kupillas, 3-5.
22. Ibid., 1. She was not able to locate his name on the list of the Society of
Descendants of Colonial Clergy.
23. Ibid., 2.
24. E n c y c l o p e d i a Britannica (1963), vol. 13.
25. Kupillas, 3.
26. Ancestral File, "Descendancy Chart." These files omit the all-important
å, ä, and ö in Scandinavian personal names and place names, which are needed
if one is to find them in local records and maps.
27. For example, the original Swedish names Jansson, Jeansson, Jonsson,
Johannesson, Johansson, Jonasson, and Jonsson might all become Johnson,
Johnston, or even Jones. Olsson, 88.
28. Ibid., 24-25.
29. By an ancient Swedish custom, the name of a dead child was often
given to the next one born of the same sex, thinking that somehow the soul of
the former now inhabited the new child. H. Arnold Barton, The Search for
A n c e s t o r s : A Swedish-American Family Saga (Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois
University Press, 1979), 27.
30. Ancestral File, "Descendancy Chart."
31. Franklin D. Scott, Sweden: The Nation's History (Minneapolis, Minn.:
The University of Minnesota Press, 1977), 238; and B. Nordstrom, Scandinavia
since 1500 (Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press, 2000).
32. Nordstrom, 117.
33. Scott, 238 ff.
34. Ibid., 244 ff., and Nordstrom, 107-10.
35. Scott, 238.
110
36. T. K. Derry, A History of Scandinavia: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, F i n -
land, and Iceland (Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press, 1983),
179.
37. Fodor's Scandinavia, 1981 (New York: Fodor's Modern Guides, 1981),
429.
38. Barton, 14.
39. Kupillas, 1.
40. Otto Robert Landelius, Swedish Place-Names in North A m e r i c a (Carbondale,
Ill.: published for the Swedish-American Historical Society, Southern Illinois
University Press, 1985), 168-70.
41. Ibid., 170-72.
42. Landelius.
43. Christopher Ward, The War of The Revolution, ed. John Richard Alden
(New York: Macmillan, 1952), 372.
44. Ibid., 372-73.
45. Ibid., 373-74.
46. Historical marker, Red Bank Battlefield Park, New Jersey.
47. Ward, 374.
48 Historical marker, Red Bank Battlefield Park, New Jersey.
49. Ward, 374.
50. Historical marker, Red Bank Battlefield Park, New Jersey.
51. Ward, 374.
52. Ibid., 375-76.
53. Historical marker, Whitall House, Red Bank Battlefield Park, New Jer­sey.
54. Ward, 376.
111